Tool for Uncompressing Archives

While personally I am perfectly happy using the command line tools, my wife would probably take my head off if I mention to her that you need to type something in the command line.  In fact her first response would be… what is a command line? 

So to make uncompressing of archives easier I found the program untar that uncompresses the archives, while using a graphical interface. 

Untar is able to uncompress files in .7z, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .tar.z, .z, .gz, .svgz .Z, .tar.Z, .taz, .tar.bz, .tar.bz2, .tbz, .tbz2, .bz, .bz2, .rar, and .zip formats.

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The Brain

A software comes around once in a while that wen originally viewed is looked at as nothing more then a toy, but when fully used and utilized after some time becomes the best software ever.

The Brain Personal (http://www.thebrain.com) is just that kind of software.  I have been using it for at least 6 years now and have gone through the whole evolution of the software.

While looking like a fancy toy this software lets you create links and thoughts for the way you think and work.  No it is not a gimmick  if you actually take the time to learn the software that is exactly what it does (A little more on that later). 

While the software has been around on the Windows platform for ages now and has evolved through out its life, it is now available cross platform due to the company porting it to java.  The Beta version of the 4.0 software is available for download. The software is free for the basic version, but the advance version which gives you a ton of exporting options and other things does cost money.

Now more on some examples to make you understand, and some of the uses that I find for the software.

1. Link Manager  - The software provides the ability to create links for various categories and interlink them together as needed.  If you look at standard link managers or at the browsers bookmarks they are linear, meaning that for each “category” it can only exist in one.  The Brain does not suffer with this limitation giving you the ability to link Yahoo to Finance, Search Engine, Blog, News, etc,. So that you can find this page from multiple locations when you are looking for something particular.

2. Address Book – I use Linked-In Software and other to keep my extensive work and home contacts in place. But once again, Outlook and other contact managers only keep a linear thought process (although with Outlook categories, you can assign multiple categories).  But this software by using multicolored links (Known as Link Types) lets you truly link the categories together so if Bob is a Friend of Jim, but is the brother of Samantha you can see it visually within seconds.  Using it with Linked-In also provides the ability to keep track of the linking process with my business associates as well.
3. To Do List – The new version with its calendaring feature also acts like an amazing To Do Manager.  I use a system called Getting Things Done for my To Do activities.  With The Brain software I can interlink my To-Do Lists not only by categories, but by projects and create hierarchies as well as assign due dates with the calendar feature.  This is probably the best implementation of the principles possible, and when I have time I just have to write about it.

I do more things with the software including keeping track of software installed on each of my systems, and marking things for upgrades easily. I keep track of all my work presentations and files, and easily export it to my PDA from the software. 

I also use it on the Mac and the PC at the same time, while the new licensing is a bit prohibitive, because they make you buy two versions of the software to use. The company does give a discount for secondary software and if you do not want the full functionality you can always use the free version.

More on this software and its use later.

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IP Calculator that is Easy to use.

While I can calculate the IP address and blocks using paper, the question that I always ask is, Why?

This free calculator lets you easily play with numbers, arrange IP Addresses, and sort the networks that are used or needed.  I use this tool extensively and would recommend it to others as well to add to your tool chest.

You can download the calculator Avanced IP Address Calculator.

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Compression to the Max on Windows

Compression has been around for ages, and the standard for windows has been defined using WinZip. That is until now!

Some time ago the new compression format 7-zip was released, giving better compression, and better security. I have started using 7-Zip as my compression engine for some time, and the compression and performance increases are worth it.

If you have a multi-core system, 7-zip for windows will utilize both of the CPU’s during compression. Overall this definitely is a great replacement for WinZip.

You can obtain 7-Zip from here:   7-Zip

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Firefox Plugins

Well I decided that I will share with everyone and at the same time document for myself the plug-ins that I use for Firefox and what they do.

AddBlock Plus – This plug-in is useful mostly on Linux version of Firefox for me as for the Windows end I use my firewall [Outpost Firewall] to block all associated add pages with the words in it. This plug-in is a wonderful thing for those people that do not have outpost firewall or use Linux.

Deepest Sender – a very nice plug-in that open’s up a window that you can blog from, and lets you do formating and posting for various blogs.  I am using it now in fact!  The only bad thing about it, which I have to submit to them and I have on my To Do List is no multiple categories.

Download Embedded – For that time that you really want to go grab the embedded graphic, movie, sound, etc., this is is the plug-in that gets it done.

Download Status bar – Simple bar that opens up downloaded boxes and the status of download instead of a separate download window.

IETab – For those times that you must use IE, there is no point in opening a separate window, this plug-in lets you open up pages inside Firefox Tab.

Tab Effect – Want some WOW factor? This plug-in just creates a rotating cube inside the browser. While not the same as XGL in Linux it is a nice little effect that runs in any Firefox environment. Now if only XGL ran on windows!

There are a few other plug-ins that I use from Google, but they take up their own posts later on!

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About Me

Why do I Blog?

Its simple! I read, I have an opinion, and I do not mind sharing it with people. There is also information that I feel I should store for later use. What better way then with a blog that I can reference.

Who Am I?
Well I am a Techie! I started with computers at the days of the Commodore 64, as a 13 year old. I started off playing games, but then got interested in programming, and started programming using assembly. After a while I discovered the 300 baud modem
and started adventures of the Bulletin Board. For a while I visited others, and then ran my own using my commodore 64 and a modified hard drive attached to a floppy controller (You had to see this 40 MB monster). As time progressed I upgraded to an Amiga computer (Which is sitting unused in my closet now) and started playing with Video. So after doing a lot of fun stuff and working with some old video gear, getting involved in 3D and producing some nice commercial adds and videos. I started working for GENIE in the Amiga Forum. Lots of fond memories of this time. During that time I actually built a few of my own PC’s and also installed Linux (pre 1.0 release of kernel), and started playing with and learning Unix.

So after some time and a job as a general administrator including building bastion hosts out of Linux systems for a small publishing company I started working as a Unix admin on HPUX and Solaris systems.

After a while this got very boring for me, as being a Unix admin is a daily grind. So I transitioned in to the world of Information Security. My Unix background gave me lots of experience to work on early firewalls which were all based on Unix derivatives. I have worked for the largest banks and insurance companies, and even worked for a few years as an Ethical Hacker and getting paid to break in to banks officially (Now that was fun).

I still work in information security and Unix although with a different twist, by working as a Sales Engineer for a vendor selling security appliances.

So thats enough about me!

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Copyright by Blue Knight

Great Firewall for Windows

If you are using Windows then you have a lot of choices for firewalls. The bad choices is the built in windows xp sp2 firewall, there are others as well some good and some not so good (Nothing I tried is worse then Microsoft’s Firewall). But the best firewall in my opinion is Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro:

Agnitum: Outpost Firewall Pro

This is a windows firewall that really is amazing for all skill level, it provides the basic functionality that my wife and kids can use, without asking many questions. But for a seasoned security professional such as myself it gives control options not found in any other firewall.

Lets first start with some of the plug-in applications that are provided by default with the firewall.

• Active Content Plug-in – Provides the ability to block, allow or prompt for various things. All of these things can be selected at a granular level with explanation available on each of the items Plus provide control that is different for Mail and Web.  There is also an ability to add total exclusions to the whole list for sites that are totally trusted. But even those sites that are trusted can still be controlled on a per item basis which is totally unheard off.  So for example your work E-Mail system has a virus that opens up  ActiveX or VBScript, but you being a savvy security person decide that you only want Java Applets or Java Script. No problem you can set-up exactly that on a per site basis. Here is a list of all the things that can be controlled:

• Privacy – Cookies, ActiveX, Java Applets, Referrers can all be controlled
• Page Optimization – Flash, Hidden Frames, Animated GIF, External Active Content
• Scripting – Java Script, VB Script, ActiveX, Pop-Up Windows

Sick of those Adds? No problem, the firewall has AntiAdd feature that allows you to block adds either by content (keywords) or from particular sites. Well this firewall does the Add Blocking for you. If you use the Firefox browser you can probably do something pretty similar by utilizing a plug-in. But you can not do it uniformly across all browsers, and programs that use the web as the content delivery mechanism.  A list of sites automatically is provided for you and can be expended by using different lists from the forums, but I personally like to delete all of them and only block the adds I do not want to see.  For example I do want to see adds from google because I find them unobtrusive and not taking up lots of space and bandwidth.   There is also the ability to block by size of the image, which Agnitum provided the most common add format when you do.  I find this feature actually a bit annoying, because it sometimes blocks images on shopping sites, but it can easily be disabled at a simple click or can be overwritten by using exclusion sites.  The adds list can be exported, and imported at will as well.

Anti Spyware – Yes I know you have a spyware program to do just that, but since it is a plug-in does not take up lots of memory and is updated frequently there is no reason not to add another layer of protection.

Attack Detection – I am not going to speak much on this as it is a simple attack detection theme. Perhaps this is where the firewall lacks a bit of the IDS functionality against other firewalls. It does not mean that it does not identify the problems, or let something through. It just does not provide the rich explanation of exactly what particular attack is being run against your computer.

DNS Cache – is simple DNS caching program which allows you to have totall exclusion for sites that have numerous rotating servers, such as a banking site.

Now lets get to the meat of the program, the program is one of the most flexible rule base firewalls ever. It does have a mode that advises what to do in each lf the categories.  The program gives advise to the beginner and opens up ports if OK is clicked, but for advanced users it gives tremendous options. The options below can be used in any combination that you want to provide very granular rules on a per application basis in any combination that you might want.

• Protocol  – TCP, UDP
• Direction of the connection – Inbound, Outbound, Transient
• Remote Host – Can be Domain Name, Ip Address, IP Subnet, Address Macros (which can be expended)
• Remote Port (Initiating port)
• Local Host
• Local Port (Destination Port)
• Time Interval
• Local Port – Allows connection on local port for remote port.
• Local Port is equal to remote port (automatically set -up)

For each of the actions the following methods are allowed:

• Allow Connection
• Block Connection
• Report it
• Run Application – Can be selected locally
• Do not log activity
• Stateful Inspection
• Ignore Component Control.

With such granularity on a per application, but we are not finished yet. There is also Anti-Leak protection and Component Control.   You can control a number of areas that I will not describe here, but basically this firewall can do everything you want.

I have been using it now for a few years, and every time I re-evaluate the firewalls I always come back to this one.

Take a look for yourself.

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Safe Flags for Intel Core Duo Laptop

Well a new laptop and another decision, what are the safe flags for an Intel Core Duo Laptop.  So a search all over the place for make flags for the system.  After a long search and not finding anything for my particular cpu set which is:

cpu family     6
model           15
Model name  Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU   T5600
stepping       8

Looking on the Intel site about this processor I found out that the T5600  and is a member of the Merom family.  When going back to the safe falgs web site above.

So not finding anything particular I come to this page:   Safe Cflags – Gentoo Linux Wiki, which I always start with to see if I can find anything.  All of the things are lumped together under the title of:

Intel Core 2 Solo/Duo/Quad (Allendale, Conroe, Merom, Kentsfield) and Xeon 51xx/53xx (Woodcrest, Clovertown)

As part of it 32 Bit is set to be:

CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

Then immediately below it states that Intel recommends nocona for 32 bit as well, and a blurb about nocona might be slower then prescott.  So for now I set my make flags to prescott and will try to do a time trial with both settings compiling the same archive later.

In GCC 4.3 there is ability to set -march to core2, this is something to look at when 4.3 becomes stable.

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